In the 16th century there was a tavern in the area now known as Hyvinkäänkylä, which lies approximately half-way between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna. The first tax catalogues also marked the existence of some houses in the area around the same time.
Hyvinkää village gradually grew in the latter half of the 19th century, though it was the construction of the railway network through Finland, beginning in 1861, that marked the starting point for the town's rapid growth.
The construction of Finland's first stretch of railroad, the Helsinki–Hämeenlinna line, determined the location of the present city centre and the railway station of Hyvinkää is one of the few original stations still in use. From Hyvinkää the railway also branches off to the port of Hanko. The Hanko–Hyvinkää Railroad was the first private railroad in Finland, founded in 1872, and acquired by the Finnish State RR Co. in 1875. In the early 1900s the station village in Hyvinkää was an intermediate stopping point for many emigrants leaving by ship from Hanko for a new life in North America.
The air quality of Hyvinkää was considered healthy due to dense pine forests, and in the 1880s a group of physicians from Helsinki opened a sanatorium for patients seeking rest and recuperation.
Industrialization brought a wool factory to Hyvinkää in 1892 – the Donner family's Hyvinge Yllespinneri. The factory ceased operation in the 1990s, but the red-brick halls still remain. The building has found several new uses, including an exhibition centre and a theater.
Hyvinkää Airfield served as the country's main airport for a short time after the second World War while Helsinki-Malmi Airport was under the control of the Allied Powers. There is now a motorsports centre near the airfield
